Magazine Article

According to Steve Pagano, Fuji's VP of field operations, BEF
represents an important ingredient to Fuji's field service. He said
that Fuji dispatches the BEF techs on an as-needed basis for
installation and break-fix assignments. He added that with BEF as a
backup, Fuji is able to maintain a more stable in-house field
service force without adding or firing techs as workload shifts.
"BEF is serving us well."

Is service important to BEF? In the past, the buying-refurb-sell
activity represented about 75% of BEF sales with service accounting
for the balance. Now, according to John Frederick, the service
sector brings in about 80% of sales.

Probably the greatest service story in our business has never
been told. When APS hit the market in the Spring of 1996, Wal-mart
committed to have every store upgraded to handle APS on-site by the
end of the year. That meant putting upgrade kits on some 1,000 Fuji
minilabs. Every one of those labs was disconnected at a Wal-Mart,
trucked back to Allentown, upgraded with an APS kit, trucked back
to a different Wal-Mart and re-installed. According to Steve
Pagano, Fuji handled the planning but BEF folks did the
fulfillment-all by year's end. A huge undertaking, both
logistically and technically.

That enterprise insured BEF's place in Fuji's service scheme and
is now serving them well as the industry reshapes.

Taking the Initiative

Among other new initiatives as BEF beats its new path to change
is the development by President Ed Brewer of a Data Collection
System (DCS) package that he feels will be attractive to lab
operators running multi sites. The system electronically connects
every minilab site to a central headquarters location. It will
allow management to track such things as paper waste, number and
sizes of prints, need for paper and chemistry, peak daily
production to maximize labor efficiency and perform remote
diagnostics. It can also connect to the department's POS register
and report detailed sales activity.

Early models of DCS, according to Ed, were somewhat bulky and
cost about $2,600 per location. The newer setup involves a piece of
hardware about the size of a handheld organizer to be connected to
each lab and would cost management less than $1,000 per location.
BEF is prepared to offer the system for a monthly fee, determined
by the number of sites, or sell outright.

Ed and his engineers have been developing DCS for a number of
years and Ed feels that the product was ready too early for the
industry. Translation: no customers yet. However, he is prepared to
take the latest version to market this summer and is optimistic. Ed
is especially proud of 14 patents that he owns on DCS and feels it
could be difficult for equipment vendors that may be trying to
incorporate some DCS features into their labs. Translation: we'll
license.

I must say it's nice to be able to report on folks that, instead
of crying in their beer about what digital is doing to them, are
altering their business plans to take advantage of new
opportunities within the industry.